For those who are awake to what is happening around the globe, it should be clear by now that the mark of the beast is coming under the guise of a unique electronic account number (eventually embedded in a subcutaneous microchip), and the day is fast approaching when “no one can buy unless he has the mark…”

The war on cash is indeed unfolding at a quickening pace all over the globe, briskly moving us like sheep to the slaughterhouse toward a cashless economy where only electronic transactions are authorized.

“Secret meeting to end cash”

On may 23, economist Martin Armstrong published an article on his Website, Armstrong Economics, about an upcoming “secret meeting to end cash” set to take place in London (UK) before the end of this month, involving representatives from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve (the “Fed”).

Reporting on this news on Infowars.com, Paul Joseph Watson reminds us that Armstrong is known for having successfully predicting the 1987 “Black Monday” crash as well as the Russian financial collapse of 1998.

“I find it extremely perplexing that I have been the only one to report of thesecret meetingin London,” Armstrong writes, pointing out that according to his sources Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Willem Buiter, Chief Economist at Citigroup, will address the central banks “to advocate the elimination of all cash to bring tofruitionthe day when you cannot buy or sell anything without government approval.”

“What is concerning me is the silence on this meeting, when there are more and more reports claiming a cashless society would be better.” – MartinArmstrong

Economic Totalitarianism

In a previous article published on May 3rd, Armstrong indicated that “This idea of eliminating cash first floated as the normal trial balloon to see how the people would take it. Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citigroup, first launched the concept. Their claims have been widely hailed and their papers are now the foundation for the new age ofEconomic Totalitarianismthat confronts us.”

“We better keep one eye open at night for this birth of a cashless society that is coming in much faster than expected. Why the secret meeting? Something does not smell right here.” – MartinArmstrong

Paul Joseph Watson also points out that discussions and moves towards banning cash have repeatedly cropped up in recent weeks. Willem H. Buiter, Global Chief Economist at Citigroup, who Armstrong claims will be speaking at the London secret meeting, is said to have recently advocated abolishing cash altogether in order to “solve the world’s central banks’ problem with negative interest rates.”

Last year, Kenneth Rogoff also apparently called for “abolishing physical currency” in order to stop “tax evasion and illegal activity”, as well as preventing people from withdrawing money when interest rates are close to zero.

“Advantages” of making cash illegal

Former Bank of England economist Jim Leaviss wrote an article for the London Telegraph earlier this month highlighting the “advantages” of making cash illegal, insisting that a cashless society would only be achieved by “forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank,” which would be, “monitored, or even directly controlled by the government.”

“In this futuristic world, all payments are made by contactless card, mobile phone apps or other electronic means, while notes and coins are abolished. Your current account will no longer be held with a bank, but with the government or the central bank. Banks still exist, and still lend money, but they get their funds from the central bank, not from depositors.” – Jim Leaviss (underlines added)

Coming back to Paul Joseph Watson, he reminds us that large banks in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. have already been treating withdrawals or deposits of moderately large amounts of cash as a suspicious activity.

In January of last year, HSBC began restricting large cash withdrawals for UK customers from £5000 upwards. In the United States, reports emerged in March of how the Justice Department has begun ordering bank employees to consider calling the cops on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more. According to Watson, assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell urged banks to “alert law enforcement authorities about the problem” so that police can “seize the funds” or at least “initiate an investigation”.

Meanwhile in France, new measures are set to come into force in September of this year that will restrict French citizens from making cash payments over €1,000 euros. Armstrong suggests that “financial police” could enforce this new law by “searching people on trains just passing through France to see if they are transporting cash, which they will now seize.”

Cash already suspicious, subject to forfeiture without due process

For those of you who don’t know, having a large amount of cash is already considered “suspicious activity” in the United States, subject to forfeiture without due process. These have been occurring more and more frequently under a long-standing U.S. Justice Department civil asset forfeiture program known as Equitable Sharing (you have to love the double-speak). The Washington Post reported last September that police had made 61,998 cash seizures since 9/11 up to that time – totaling $2.5 billion – without search warrants or indictments.

Thanks to civil forfeiture laws, the authorities can seize your property without having to convict you of a crime. “Cash seizures can be made under state or federal civil law,” the Washington Post reported. “One of the primary ways police departments are able to seize money and share in the proceeds at the federal level is through Asset forfeiture, an extraordinarily powerful law enforcement tool that allows the government to take cash and property without pressing criminal charges and then requires the owners to prove their possessions were legally acquired.”

“The war on cash is intensifying as authorities attempt to crack down on one of the few remaining modes of anonymity.” – Paul Joseph Watson

“Utter Madness”

Hugo Salinas Price

As Armstrong and Watson both note, “banning cash in order to eviscerate what little economic freedoms people have left to avoid disastrous Keynesian central bank policy is nothing short of economic totalitarianism.”

Mexican retail mogul Hugo Salinas-Price recently declared in an interview with Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog that “It certainly isn’t getting better when you have some intellectuals going so crazy as to say they want to ban cash. We can’t go too much further along this road. This is utter madness.”

However, “In the mind of an economic tyrant, banning cash represents the holy grail,” writes Michael Krieger. “Forcing the plebs onto a system of digital fiat currency transactions offers total control via a seamless tracking of all transactions in the economy, and the ability to block payments if an uppity citizen dares get out of line.”

Meanwhile, as mentioned in a recent post, Denmark is quickly moving forward with plans for a cashless society, while in the United States Louisiana has already banned cash transactions for second-hand goods.

“A vision of Hell troubles our sleep.

It is the vision of what the United States will be like when the authorities have obliterated almost three millennia of monetary progress and have their boots on our necks.”

– Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners

“Why do the feds want to eliminate cash?”, Bill Bonner asks. “Isn’t it obvious? They want to control you and your money. Where did you get it? They’ll want to know. What will you do with it? They’ll want a say. Couldn’t you use it for something ‘bad’? Heck, you might support ‘terrorists’… evade taxes… or buy a pack of cigarettes. The possibilities are too rich to ignore. And the arguments are too persuasive to stop.”

“If even 10% of people hit their breaking points and withdrew their money in cash– there wouldn’t be enough cash in the system to support this demand. And the banks would subsequently collapse.

If governments have proven anything to us over the last seven years, it is that they will do anything to keep the banks from going down.

This is a major reason why they’re trying to get rid of cash, and in some cases even criminalize it under the ridiculous auspices of the war on terror.”

Time permitting, I intend to publish a post outlining some steps we can still take to counter the rapidly growing momentum toward a cashless society, but I am afraid anything we can do individually at this point will ultimately prove to be too little, too late, unless there is a global outcry against this slide into Orwellian economic totalitarianism.

■ Henri Thibodeau

“The use of cash is economic free speech. And the magnificence of the economy is everybody votes with that, by spending their money.”
―Ron Paul

Update, June 2, 2015

According to an article published by Business Insider – Australia on May 26, 2015, A quarter of Australians are OK having a chip implanted in them to pay for stuff. Alex Heber writes that “A mind-boggling 25% of Australians say they are at least ‘slightly interested’ at the prospect of having a chip implanted in their skin that could be used for payments,” this according to new research by credit card company Visa and the University of Technology, Sydney (Australia).

“Many see microchips becoming not only mandatory under an Orwellian super-surveillance state – but utterly indispensable to modern life, as dozens of hard-to-remember passwords, payments and transactions for online business and leisure become not just commonplace but overwhelming and pervasive. The chip might become too necessary not to take.”
― Mac Slavo, SHTFplan.com, December 10th, 2014